Grace
by Shesbeenlying
Summary: Did it hurt? When you fell from grace?" Dan finds himself unexpectedly picking up the pieces of a Blair destroyed over the loss of Chuck. Dan/Blair/Chuck
1. Chapter 1

**_Grace._**

Dan unexpectedly becomes the one to pick up the pieces of a distraught Blair destroyed by losing Chuck.

Chuck/Blair/Dan

* * *

**I. **

She was not the kind of girl I ever imagined myself falling in love with. In fact she was the opposite of any girl I ever intended of falling in love with. She was everything I thought I disliked about the world I found myself connected with. She wasn't the kind of heroine I wrote about in my novels. She wasn't the free spirited gorgeous amazon woman that had been imprinted in my mind as perfection since that ill fated ninth grade party.

On the contrary she was insecure.

Petite and doe eyed with the kind of bark little dogs have to take on in order to protect themselves and to pretend to be up to par with the big ones. It was a Tuesday. Feburary 10th, 2008. I had come over to Serena's on a nostalgic whim. Twilight had begun to settle and the street lights had begun to turn on. The soft lightening of Park Avenue was far more romantic than the contrasting Neon Signs of Brooklyn.

I had no where to go anymore.

After Bart's death, they had moved three buildings down to a different penthouse overlooking Central Park. Maybe because Lily couldn't be reminded of the horribly failed marriage, or her lost stepson, or the mess my father and her had gotten into-again. She could pretend to be a grieving widow, even though Bart wasn't the death she was actually staying up late in the the night crying over.

She had attempted to keep some kind of busy. Redecorating, and going into hiding. The scandal of the last few months was still fresh from what I heard in the whispers at school. For the first time I was somewhat connected to the high society gossip of the Upper East Side. I didn't know how I felt about it, and I didn't really take the time to process it. I just didn't go home as much, only to check on Jenny, whose urge for freedom I was finally beginning to understand. The doorman knew me as I walked in.

"Good evening Mr. Humphrey"

"Hey Walter" I nodded as I headed towards the elevator. I knew there was a good chance Aaron would be there but I didn't really care. I just wanted to sit in Serena's familiar presence and know that all was still somewhat sane in the world as she chatted about Eric and worrying about her mother's latest behavior.I wanted so badly to feel a taste of what had become so normal to me last year.

The apartment felt empty and cold, and for a minute I wondered if I was alone with the Van der Woodsen staff.

"Serena" I called down hallway to her room. I could see light spilling out from the doorway. I head a thump down the hall and I felt my stomach churn. Maybe I had come at a bad time…maybe Aaron was here… I was about to walk out when the light from Serena's room caught my eye. A glimpse of something that I couldn't turn away from.

A mess of usually pristine brown hair, and a light pink slip slightly hiked up revealing pearl colored panties. Black smudges around her shut eyes that appeared to be from some kind of crying I had missed out on. I blushed and turned away for a millisecond, registering in my mind that something was very night right with this picture. You tend to think kind of fast in these situations.

"Blair! Wake up! Wake up" I shook her looking around the room. What the fuck was going on? Where the hell was Serena? Or anyone?? Then I noticed that on Serena's plasma TV Audrey Hepburn's face lit up the screen. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Of course. I knew enough that Blair and Serena enjoyed this ritual whenever something was wrong. I looked up to see an empty martini glass resting on the bedside table next to an open bottle of pills. Christ. Laying Blair back down I panicked searching for the prescription.

LILY VAN DER WOODSEN- LEXAPRO TAKE TWICE DAILY AS NEEDED

It was nearly empty. Had it always been??? I was starting to panic. I knelt back on the floor

"Blair?? Can you hear me?" Her was limp in my arms but she opened her eyes for a brief moment a fuzzy look on her face.

"Paul?"

"No, DAN. Blair where is Serena?? I'm going to call 911 okay?"

"The ending wasn't supposed to be like this. It's supposed to be happy. Happy." She looked at me for a moment, and reached up and touched my face.

Her eyes rolled back into her head and I freaked. My cell phone was already in my hands as I fumbled for 911.

"Hello, yeah I am with…a friend, and I think, I think she's overdosed on…lexapro??" They told me to try to make her throw up in the meantime. Seriously I was in way over my head, how the hell was I supposed to do that?? I carried her to the bathroom as I freaked out in my head. Honestly I just didn't want her to die. She sat like a ragdoll on the floor her legs splayed out on the tile.

"Paul, this is so great that you found me. Because I loved him Paul, I love him so much...." Pain winced across her face as she furrowed her brow for a moment like she had a migrane of a memory.

"He doesn't love me." I thought I heard her whisper.

"I need to stick my finger down your throat, and even though you won't remember this I apologize."

She opened her mouth wide like a child at the doctor. And I closed my eyes as I gently as possibly stuck my finger past her tongue and into her throat. She threw up quite quickly. And as I held her hair back the paramedics came rushing in.

"Sweetheart!" They were yelling. I stood back. Watching paramedics pump Blair Waldorf's stomach. Still having no clue what the fuck just happened. But I knew I had just witnessed something that whether I liked it or not, made me connected to Blair in a way I never was before.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

* * *

I was sitting in the dark on one of the white couches of the living room. To be honest I had really wanted to go after this whole debacle but after finally getting ahold of Serena she had begged me through panicked tears to stay put. I looked at the grandfather clock in the foyer, against the light from the street outside I read the roman numerals, vaguely musing myself back to 5th grade Latin at St. Jude's.

4:44 A.M.

It was still finally in this apartment after the chaos. For awhile I just sat in Serena's room, taking it all in even after it was over. I began to feel uncomfortable around 2, after all I was sitting alone, in my ex-girlfriend's bedroom, and relocated to the living room. My mind was racing. Pieces of what just happened within the last couple of hours drifted through my mind like a movie strip I couldn't put on pause.

_"Serena... it's me, something just happened...it's Blair."_

_" Fuck, what happened? Oh my god, here is she. Is she okay?!"_

It was almost like was expecting this though. The fear in her voice. Obviously Serena knew a lot more about Blair Waldorf than I ever did. Ever since Chuck had disappeared, I had seen her at school. She looked the same as she always did on the surface. Poised and polished, wearing accessories and clothing that I didn't quite understand. Outrageously expensive I supposed. Her and Serena both. Her headbands always perched on her head like some kind of crown. She didn't want anyone ever thinking something bad could happen to her. She didn't want anyone to feel sorry when they did.

Then a memory that I had simply just forgotten.

Weeks ago, I had seen her, I think she had thought no one was there, looking for things in her locker, the hallway was empty. She didn't notice me at all. Something about the look in her eye as she looked down at her hands, she looked defeated. She closed her eyes and I had looked away. She would never dare cry in the hallways of somewhere like school. It reminded me vaguely of the only time I had ever really connected with her. Seeing her defeat after her mother's disapproval of her at the photoshoot. These were the only times by pure chance I had seen into what Blair Waldorf really might just be.

I forgot that she was after all, just a girl who had had her heart broken. By expectations that were way too high for anyone to fufill. By herself and what Serena had described to me as "the movie she found herself starring in 24/7", and lastly by a boy. I never thought of Blair actually loving Chuck Bass until tonight. Even when she had told me about it at my father's gallery. I dismissed it as bored rich kids playing a game. How could they possibly really know what love is?

I was feeling guilty about this. I didn't know everything. If anything tonight had proved it was that. I had seen someone who hid her vunerability under designer labels, and social games almost die tonight over something I didn't understand at all. "He doesn't love me." She had told me with blank eyes and her pale skin shining with sweat of overdosing. Then she had thrown up, forgetting the moment, trading it for heaves into the toliet.

The clock struck five and the door opening interrupted my thoughts.

"Dan." Serena nearly ran to me and threw her arms around me. She put her face in my neck silently sobbing.

"She's okay right?" I asked.

She looked up running her hands over her face. Her long blonde hair had the messiness of someone who had been running their hands through it all night.

"She's fine. She'll be okay. She's fine." She paused, putting her hand over her heart trying to catch her breath. I noticed she was only wearing a coat, an oversized men's dress shirt and heals. I cringed a little, not wanting to know what she had been up to before her night had been disrupted by Blair's episode. I felt her sad eyes on me and I looked her straight in the face.

"Okay…good I'm…" She didn't let me finish.

"I should have been here. I'm so sorry." She interrupted awkwardly.

"I'm so sorry Dan." And I knew she meant that in more way than one. She was wearing the guilt and fear all over her face.

"Has she been like this for awhile?" I knew it wasn't necessarily my business but I felt I kind of deserved to know.

"Yes." She breathed quietly.

"Since Chuck left?"

"Especially since." Serena bite her fingernail. I could tell she didn't want to talk about it anymore. She was always keeping secrets, making me feel like I wasn't good enough to know them even when I had been in the midst of them. What had happened tonight would probably be covered up, just like everything else always was in their world. And I would probably never talk to Blair about it again. I dug my hands in my pockets and thumbed at my keys. I had to get out of here.

"I'm going to take off…" I leaned in to kiss her on the cheek and she lingered too long. I know I could've probably slept with her, I could feel that in the air around us, that tension, but I couldn't get what had just happened off my mind. I couldn't just let it go and let this turn into something that was between Serena and I. Because it just wasn't. Tonight wasn't about Serena. Tonight, for the first time in my life, somehow ended up belonging to Blair.


End file.
